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Current growth cap not good for Manteca

Editor, Manteca Bulletin:

Manteca city government tries to make us believe that we need more homes. Steve DeBrum says it is “inevitable”. Okay, I will give them “inevitable”, but let’s have a controlled “inevitable”. Fellow Mantecans, are you aware of how many thousands of lots for homes are approved and waiting for approval? I was shocked when I went to the City of Manteca online site. I clicked on the Planning Commission then Documents. There are approximately 14,000. Now conservatively that would probably boost our population by 50,000.

At the last City Council meeting Mr. DeBrum said it is projected that there will be a mortgage crisis in 2015. If he believes that then why is he so gung-ho on growth? In the Bulletin he commented on preserving “our community’s unique character”. What exactly is our “unique character”? A sad downtown where no one goes unless they have to? A community that builds more homes than they can adequately provide services for? A community where the city government doesn’t care about what the community wants?

An analogy of the city’s “too much too soon” development, and the road Manteca may be going down, would be: A person maxes out their credit credit cards so they get additional ones and max them out. This goes on until their bills have reached a level where they are no longer able to cover even basic living expenses and have to go into bankruptcy. Who is ultimately the loser here? It will be those people who have used their cards responsibly because the credit card companies will pass their loss along in the form of higher interest rates.

If building continues with the current growth cap, as it is written, be prepared to see the results passed along to you, the residents of Manteca, in the form of higher taxes and reduced services.